Welcome back to the UGA Mailbag, where http://www.authenticsteelerssales.com/senquez-golson-jersey-c-1_17.html each week we invite readers ask our expertise (low bar) about Georgia football, UGA athletics or whatever springs to mind. This week we delve into RPOs, and asked the questions: Why does “deep” have be in the South’s Oldest Rivalry name? Did Kirby Smart and Nick Saban play possum last weekend? Plus, over-under predictions on Georgia and Auburn, and a deep discussion on a quality TV show.
But first, as you may be able to tell from the headline, we begin with a question about Georgia’s freshman quarterback:
Before UGA started running up the score against Tennessee and took the crowd out the game, I remember Jake Fromm having trouble with the crowd noise and checking plays at the line. Do you see the crowd noise affecting Fromm this weekend? If so, how much?
– BearDawg
This idea that Fromm has trouble on the road seems like a false narrative … until you look at the stats.
Fromm at home: 69.3%, 11.7 yards per attempt, 10 TD, 1 INT
Fromm on the road/neutral: 55%, 6.9 ypa, 5 TD, 3 INT
The Tennessee game is the closest corollary to what Fromm is about to face, as the Notre Dame game was close to if not an even crowd split, so was Vanderbilt, and Florida definitely was. At Neyland Stadium, with about 100,000 orange fans yelling, Fromm began the game 0-for-4 while taking a sack, before getting going on the third drive and completing five passes for 62 yards on that drive including the touchdown to make it 10-0. Then Georgia basically stopped passing and Fromm finished with only 22 more passing yards.
It doesn’t feel like Fromm has struggled on the road. Even with the Notre Dame crowd being such as it was, it was still impressive for him to deal with that and win, though it was by no means a perfect performance. Fromm just has that aura about him, that “it factor” as teammates said even before the trip to Notre Dame, where it seems like you don’t have to worry about him being rattled. He also seems to be one of those short-memory guys, as evidenced by the way he’s followed up his turnovers this year, some of them costly: By shaking them off and playing well the rest of the game.
None of this is to say that the dam couldn’t break this weekend. Auburn is likely to keep this game closer than Tennessee did, and if Fromm does struggle the way he did at the outset at Neyland, the Bulldogs probably aren’t going to be able to just hand the ball off and coast the rest of the way. I could see a scenario where Fromm finally meets his match with the Auburn defense and the crowd.
But I won’t predict that.
It seems like RPO’s are all the rage. So I http://www.divasta.com/rees-odhiambo-jersey-c-1_29.html was wondering: What technique is being taught to the O line when the play is a RPO? It used to make me crazy when Auburn would have 3/4 linemen 4/5 yards past the line of scrimmage and then Cam would pull up and chunk one downfield. As David Pollack once said, “it’s cheating”. So how does an offensive lineman stay legal when he doesn’t know if the play will turn out to be a run or a pass?
(This new fangled offensive game drives me nuts. I’m so old, we were taught to grab our own jerseys so we didn’t get called for holding!)
– Frank from McDonough
Frank, this is a good question, and a well-timed one: I received it Wednesday afternoon just before interviews, so I trotted out to Isaiah Wynn and put your question to him: How much does it affect how you block?